The Empire of Illusion and the Doom Index Rises

"To preserve independence, we
must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."

--
Thomas Jefferson

An
abbreviated excerpt from 2009 by prize winning New York Times journalist Chris
Hedges…

“…The country’s moral
decay is manifested in its physical day.

It is no coincidence that
our infrastructure – roads, bridges, sewers, airports, trains, mass transit –
is overburdened [our electrical grid is as well], outdated and in dismal
repair.Cities are plagued by broken pipes
and sinkholes.The EPA estimates that
collapsing sewer systems release more than 40,000 discharges of raw sewage into
our drinking water and homes each year.

The Education Dept. found
that one-third of our schools are in such a state of disrepair [even worse in
Detroit] that it interferes with the delivery of instruction.Half of all the bankruptcies in America occur
because people are unable to pay their medical bills – [despite having
insurance].And staggering unemployment,
declining wages, declining real estate values, and shuttered retail stores and
factories span the nation. This past week more than 3,000 retailers announced coming closures.

The U.S. supports 761
military bases around the globe to support our mission to be the global
policeman and to impose our values, by force on the world.This expensive belief has corrupted both
Republicans and Democrats.We can no
longer afford this.Home foreclosures,
job losses, poverty ripping apart the working classes, our crumbling
infrastructure…hollowing us out from the inside at home.

The daily bleeding of
middle class jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political
crisis.The street protests, strikes and
riots that have rattled Greece and other parts of Europe will descend on us at
some point and that point is coming soon and will plunge us into a long period
of social instability…at no period of our history has there been such peril,
such an income gap or the possibility of totalitarianism as real is it is
now.Our children will never have the
standard of living we have.

This is reality.It cannot be undone with trillions of bailout
money.How we will cope or our children?

>>Personally, I feel
the divisions are deep in this nation and our republic is at risk of
permanently fracturing.The Democrats
openly talk of shutting down free speech and engage in acts of political obstructionism
and we could easily be headed for more mass social unrest and turmoil-perhaps
even complete chaos and a world depression.

It’s no secret to those
who are paying attention that President Trump has inherited a financial mess
from President Obama.

1.Stock markets are
at record highs yet corporate profits are dropping and the retail sector is
hurting.

2.Home prices are
rising yet household incomes are falling and many cannot qualify for a
mortgage.The housing market is worth
more than $26 trillion-the largest asset class in the world.The Economist Magazine says it poses
great danger for the U.S. and the world due to its massive concentration of
debt.Some are predicting that housing
prices will start to fall again, sliding as much as 50% over several years...
the so-called "recovery" over the last few years will diminish faster
than an ice cube on a hot summer day, as mortgage rates rise and the wrong
group of investors -- the speculators -- lose their taste for the market.

3.College tuition
is rising to astronomical levels [$1.3 trillion] while decent paying jobs are
vanishing and college loan payments will likely swamp an entire generation.

4.Unemployment will
surge again as the work pool continues to shrink and companies lean towards
employing people with experience (something students entering the workforce
obviously lack).

5.With continued
demographic decline, economic hardship, and their budgets in crisis, many
state and municipal governments will be forced into default, especially at the
city and county level. Detroit was only the first...

Auto inventories are
starting to balloon due to declining sales and with six and seven year auto
loans we’re seeing buyers who are literally upside down on their auto
loans!The industry has been pushing
leases with ridiculously low mileage terms of measly 10,000 mile leases
before additional fee-per-mile rates kick in!

Congress
Will Have 4 Days To Avoid A Government Shutdown On April 29

The Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now forecasting model is now
projecting that U.S. GDP growth for the first quarter of 2017 will be just 0.6
percent on an annualized basis.

That is absolutely pathetic, and as I have said
before, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we actually end up with a negative
number for the first quarter.

If we do indeed get a negative number for the first
quarter and that is followed by another negative number for the second quarter,
that will mean that a new recession has already
started right now but we just haven’t gotten official
confirmation yet.

And lots of other things are already happening which
have not happened since the last recession. For instance, this is the
first time since the last financial crisis when there has been no growth for
commercial and industrial lending for at least six months.

Commercial bankruptcy filings, from corporations to
sole proprietorships, spiked 28% in March from February, the largest month-to-month
move in the data series of the American Bankruptcy Institute going back to 2012.

Of course consumer bankruptcies are rising at an
alarming rate as well. The following comes from Wolf Richter…

In December, bankruptcy filings rose 4.5% from a year
earlier. In January they rose 5.4%. It was the first time consumer bankruptcies
rose back-to-back since 2010. I called it “a red flag that’ll be highlighted
only afterwards as a turning point.”

In March, consumer bankruptcy filings rose 4%
year-over-year, to 77,900, the highest since March 2015, when 79,000 filings
occurred, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute data. The
turning point has now been confirmed.

The cost of living
continues to escalate – examples include skyrocketing rates for health care
premiums, home-owners insurance premiums, college tuition and costs.Most Americans will be blindsided by another
major recession as they never learned a thing from the last one in
2008-2009.According to CBS
News, an astounding three-fourths of all Americans have to “scramble to cover
their living costs” each month.

Economists: All the bubbles are ready to bust »
President Donald Trump's election and a subsequent boost in market activity
have many former economic doomsters feeling rosy about the nation's financial
future. But serious observers remain concerned that the temporary turnaround
will only make the impending economic doomsday more painful. More »

Prepare For The
Coming War: “It’s Going To Obliterate The Global Financial System… Our Economy
Will Not Survive”

Whether he likes it or
not, President Trump could find himself either managing the bankruptcy of the
United States [after all, he’s plenty of experience doing this in his business
life] or the Federal Reserve continues to create massive amounts of money to
pay our debt, thereby hyper-inflating [and devaluing] the U.S. dollar.

Neither
option is attractive and will create pain for the American people for decades.

·It will do us no good to live in
ignorance or denial of these developments and their implications, as most
Americans are now doing. The … approaching global financial meltdown; the potential
for war as discussed above; the potential for martial law and/or an emerging
dictatorship in America orchestrated by the political left and the globalist
Establishment are all sobering subjects that should not be ignored.

·If things do go really badly in the
not-too-distant future (and this writer hopes and prays that they will not) –
are you and your family prepared for very hard or dangerous times? The
great majority of Americans are not, and
will panic and beg the government to bail them out and stop the pain – the same
government that caused the problems in the first place. Are
you prepared for hard times in the following ways?

·Are you prepared for a financial
collapse and depression? Is most of your money, life savings, retirement funds, or
net worth still in the system – in banks, in the stock market, in your 401k or
pension fund? If so, you are not prepared! Do
you have 25-50% of your liquid net worth in physical gold and silver? If
not, you are not prepared! Have you positioned some of your net worth outside of the US
just in case Big Brother becomes"grabby" for your assets? If
not, then you are not prepared! Do you have enough cash set aside outside of the banks for
you and your family to survive for at least 3-6 months? If
not, then you are not prepared!

·Are you prepared for martial law or a
dictatorship – by and for the political left and the globalist
Establishment that now controls almost every aspect of America? Do you have a
rural, small town, remote living option in the event that the major cities
become very dangerous or unlivable, or in the event of total martial law? If
not, then you are not prepared! Do you have likeminded friends who do understand the times
(and are not living in denial) whom you can cooperate with and who can be of
mutual assistance and support in very difficult times? If
not, then you are not prepared! Do you have up-to-date passports for every member of your
family in the event that you need to suddenly exit the country in the coming
crisis? If not, then you are not prepared!

·Are you prepared for a long period of
turbulence, social unrest, acute shortages of everything (including food)? Do you have at least six
months (or more) of food reserves, or the ability to be self-sustaining by
growing your own food (which will be very difficult if you live in a major
city)? If not, then you are not prepared! Do you have enough
firearms (pistols, rifles, shotguns) and ammunition to protect your family in a
long-term period of violence or unrest? If not, then you are not
prepared! Do
you have alternate means of communications in the event that the Internet and
phone system are not functioning in an extended crisis? If
not, then you are not prepared!

·Do you have an understanding of alternate/natural/herbal medicine
in the event that the medical system becomes paralyzed in a crisis? If
not, then you are not prepared! Do you have some kind of shelter you could go into in the event of
a nuclear attack – similar to the Swiss, who have such a shelter in every home?
If not, then you are not prepared!

·Are you prepared for long periods of isolation,
stress, and very fearful conditions?

The fate of
the so-called "Trump Trade" – the big rally in the U.S. dollar, stocks, and interest rates
driven by expectations on higher growth and inflation – will likely depend on
what happens over the next few months.

If Trump and the Republican Congress can deliver on his "big three"
policy proposals – tax reform, regulatory reform, and infrastructure spending –
we could see a new era of growth (and potentially a lot of inflation).

If they fail, we could slide back into a serious recession (or worse).

We believe tax reform could be the most critical of the
three… This coming debate could determine the future of the U.S. economy for
the next few decades.It always seems
we’re on a roller coaster!

Finally,
what is ironic to me are the writers and groups supported by In
These Times andJim Hightower
and his newsletter, Lowdown who preach anti-Trump anger and strategies to disrupt
his administration [I subscribe to many left-wing periodicals in order to gain
insight into to their idiocy].Their ilk
preaches hate and resistance but little or nothing about constructive
alternatives.They’re two-bit protestors
and as witnessed during Trumps’ swearing in ceremony, they’re nothing more than
common thugs and vandals.

Hats
off to the McAlvany Memo of Phoenix, AZ for portions of this report!

Yours for a productive
2017,

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’

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3 comments:

DAR
said...

Quite a plate full of information to digest but not to be dismissed out of hand. Like many of us, you've expressed the fears and suspicions we've been holding about the economy and our hopes that somehow Trump can come to the rescue but it may be too late as so much damage has been done by Obama and Bush...my family and I have been preparing as well as we can for a long time but always wonder if it will ever be enough.Thanks for the wonderful job you always do.